So between Escharum, the concept art for Jega, and the Okro Vagaduun icon we saw on the map in the July reveal, it’s looking more and more likely we’re going to get a form of boss fights in Infinite. I’m wondering, how would you all like to see them go?
Halo hasn’t exactly had the best track record with boss fights. Tartarus, Regret, and Guilty Spark were all kind of just meh to me and the warden eternal was kind of fun once but got very old, very quick. I know I don’t want them to just be regular enemies with more life, but I still want them to put up an extra challenge.
I personally would love it if they were somehow able to make each one stand out for their own unique ability - much in the fashion of Metal Gear Solid. MGS was so great at devising these clever situations for each boss fight that, despite being a shooting game, still required you to outthink the boss more than outshoot them. As opposed to say something like Destiny where you just have to pour on as many bullets as you can in between waves of the standard bad guys. That’s the last thing I’d want for Infinite.
But what do you all think? I’m curious where the community stands on bosses in Halo as a whole and how they should be handled.
The one aspect of boss fights Destiny does well is when the boss has unique abilities or mechanics to make the fight more interesting. But I don’t want the enemies to feel like they’re just big enemies with large health pools for sure.
Translating that to Halo, having something like an invulnerable one-way shield and disabling the shield being something you actually have to accomplish, like locating and destroying several shield generators, each of which is guarded by some enemies while the boss fires on you with a FRG from his high vantage point, then once the shield generators are taken care of, he leaps down, cloaks, all the lights go out, and he begins to hunt you with an Energy Sword which is your chance to take him down, and he has high-powered shields akin to an Ultra.
If that was how one boss works, and they don’t just copy paste the same mechanics for all the mini bosses, then that particular boss will be a memorable and unique gameplay moment.
Another idea I have is that you’re hunting a grunt deacon, but in a location where if you’re detected an alarm will sound and a very overwhelming number of enemies will appear, and the Deacon will retreat to safety. So the goal would be to figure out how to track down and kill the Deacon without being noticed, and then sneak back out, or you can partake in an incredibly difficult firefight, and try to kill the Deacon before he manages to escape from the location.
Another one could involve boarding a Banished ship, fighting your way to the bridge, and taking out the brute shipmaster before setting the ship to self-destruct and escaping within a time limit. With the encounter feeling similar to defeating the shipmasters of the Truth and Reconciliation in CE or the corvette in Long Night of Solace in Reach. It’s just a regular high-rabking brute, but the mission sticks out.
If there is boss fights it will likely be a heavy uses of the environment and equipment against a well heavily health buffed enemy with more mechanics than the average enemy
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> The one aspect of boss fights Destiny does well is when the boss has unique abilities or mechanics to make the fight more interesting. But I don’t want the enemies to feel like they’re just big enemies with large health pools for sure.
>
> Translating that to Halo, having something like an invulnerable one-way shield but with disabling the shield being something you actually have to accomplish, like locating and destroying several shield generators, each of which is guarded by some enemies while the lays FRG fire from his high vantage point, then once the shield generators are taken care of, he leaps down, cloaks, all the lights go out, and he begins to hunt you with an Energy Sword which is your chance to take him down, and he has high-powered shields akin to an Ultra.
>
> If that was how one boss works, and they don’t just copy paste the same mechanics for all the mini bosses, then that particular boss will be a memorable and unique gameplay moment.
>
> Another idea I have is that you’re hunting a grunt deacon, but in a location where if you’re detected an alarm will sound and a very overwhelming number of enemies will appear, and the Deacon will retreat to safety. So the goal would be to figure out how to track down and kill the Deacon without being noticed, and then sneak back out, or you can partake in an incredibly difficult firefight, and try to kill the Deacon before he manages to escape from the location.
>
> Another one could involve boarding a Banished ship, fighting your way to the bridge, and taking out the brute shipmaster before setting the ship to self-destruct and escaping within a time limit. With the encounter feeling similar to defeating the shipmasters of the Truth and Reconciliation in CE or the corvette in Long Night of Solace in Reach. It’s just a regular high-rabking brute, but the mission sticks out.
The whole stealth assassination idea would be pretty cool for an addition to Halo. The closest we really get to stealth kills are killing sleeping grunts that normally won’t wake up unless you fire a shot or toss a grenade and that is pretty disappointing.